A winter solstice birthday, plus ways to mark the dark
Ideas to pause this December
Today is my 40th birthday, a day that has in recent weeks sparked several polite variations of ‘Well, you don’t look forty,’ as though a woman looking her age is something to be dodged like a dose of December flu. One of my aunts told me that someone said to me when I was little, ‘Your sisters are much more attractive than you,’ to which I apparently sassily replied, ‘That might be true, but I have a very nice nature.’
That story must be utter bollocks, for several reasons.
Firstly, who would say that to a child? I can’t imagine that even the weirdest misanthrope would come out with that to a little girl.
Secondly, I was fairly bright, but I’m not sure I’d have been able to clap back with that Wildean wit aged eight, after just being told to my face how unattractive I was.
And finally, I was incredibly cute when I was little. There are loads of stories of funny things I said when I was little, photo evidence of me in various sailor suits, with missing teeth and T-bar sandals, and I’m a little snack. I was a tiny scrap that the other children in nursery would put in a doll’s pram and push around, while I bossed them around.
The story of the night I was born has gone around and around in the family folklore – my Mum, delighted with her maternity party dress ready for Dad’s Christmas do, had a check-up where they discovered blood pressure so high that they induced her the same day. No party, no chance to wear her new dress.
The calling around the next day of everyone to announce: ‘Alice was born this morning’, a story delivered with equal, if not more, gravitas as the visitation of Our Lady from Archangel Gabriel. Of me being so small that I had to be dressed in baby doll’s clothes instead of newborn clothes and Mum had to cut terry nappies in half to fit me.
Of a Christmas morning in hospital, just Mum and I cuddled up together, while Dad wrangled my sisters, aged two and one, and tried to cook a turkey having stayed up until 2am putting the decorations up at home. Grandy grumpily missing out on Christmas dinner and Gran having to cook a pork chop for him instead, as there hadn’t been any time to prepare. The looks on my sister’s faces when they came down to the miracle of twinkling lights and foil concertinas hanging from the ceiling where the night before there had been none.
I still, somewhere, have the pompom rabbits that were given to me on Christmas morning by the hospital Father Christmas. My aunties ring me each birthday and retell these stories of Christmas with a baby so small nobody wanted to change my nappy because they were worried my legs would fall off, and that can’t be 40 years ago, surely?
Christmas and midwinter have always felt special, and this year I did something very much out of my comfort zone, and went on an Advent retreat with my Mum. As an adult, time to talk with your Mum one-on-one, with nobody to interrupt, nothing else to focus on, and a weekend away from life’s stresses, felt incredibly special.
We learned about a baby born in a precarious situation in the tumultuous Middle East 2,000 years ago, and a story not of exclusion but of welcome – ‘no room at the inn’ was more like ‘It’s not perfect, but stay with us, still, you’re family,’ equivalent to the modern-day pull-out bed in a home office. As with some rural families in the UK and Ireland even less than 100 years ago, some homes were two storeys high, with a just-enough-to-fit-sized upstairs, and downstairs the animals were kept safe, warm and dry overnight. We learned that ‘inn’ is a slight mistranslation and should be something more akin to ‘homestead’, and that regardless, this baby was born in as lowly a situation as he could be, into a troubled world full of fighting.
Time to retreat in December, at such a busy time, was a way to gear-shift, and left me reflective, purposeful and (dare I say it) calm.
Five ways to mark the midwinter:
1 – Light a firepit, or clump together candles and dot them around the home, and sit with them for a few moments
2 – Decide whether a charitable donation feels like something you can manage this year; a favourite cause that might remind you of a lost loved one or something close to your heart
3 – Take some time on your own if you can. An early morning or late night can be good if the daytime isn’t working. Sometimes I tell my daughter I’m sitting quietly for 10 minutes after lunch. She can sit with me, but I am having a moment to myself
4 – Think about some gentle intentions to guide through the end of the year. It’s a bit early for vision boards and New Year’s Resolutions, but resolving in advance not to get wound up by petty arguments can help keep the calm
5 – Remember to relax. If that frantic last-minute panic is looming, decide whether you really do need to do everything on the list. Is there anything you can drop?
Sometimes I have to remind myself that this is supposed to be a nourishing, exciting, fun time, rather than an inspection of whether or not I’ve written enough Christmas cards or bought the right presents for everyone.